Tuesday, November 04, 2014

All Soul's Day

A Homily for All Soul's Day
by Rev. Steven Marshall

The Gnosis of Remembering

All Souls’s Day is traditionally a time to remember the blessed dead.
In Latin cultures they call it the Day of the Dead. They decorate the graves
of the dead and remember the relatives and loved ones that have passed
beyond those graves. They recall a spiritual connection with some spiritual
and immortal part of those deceased whom they have loved or admired while
in earthly life.
As we remember those loved ones and revered ones who have passed on,
we must remember our own eventual death and contemplate why the dead are
called “blessed.” Why is an intimate understanding of death so important
to the Gnostic paradigm? One that comes readily to mind is that those who
have died have passed over into another realm of consciousness, another
world, another reality. Connection with such an alternative reality is
very much a part of the Gnostic journey to wholeness. Through connection
with an alternative reality we might achieve consciousness of the original
Light from which we come and to which, with divine aid, we have the potential
to eventually return.
As we remember those who have passed over before us, we can begin to
understand some of the cryptic sayings of the early Gnostics concerning
death and gain insight into our own end. In The Gospel of Thomas the disciples
ask Jesus, “Tell us how our end will be.” He answers with a question. “Have
you then discovered the beginning that you inquire about the end? For where
the beginning is, there shall be the end. Blessed is he that shall stand
at the beginning, and he shall know the end and he shall not taste death.”
This logion is not the first place in the Gospel of Thomas where
the phrase “shall not taste death” occurs, as it comes at the very beginning
in the first logion where Jesus’ first utterance is, “Whoever finds the
understanding of these words shall not taste death.” So from the very beginning
the gospel the Savior points us to the mystery of death, of the birth which
is a spiritual death, and the spiritual rebirth which transcends death.
Dr. Jung in his commentaries on the Tibetan Book of the Dead describes
this mystery in more contemporary terms:

“The supreme vision comes not at the end of the Bardo, but right at
the beginning, at the moment of death; what happens afterward is an ever-deepening
descent into illusion and obscuration, down to the ultimate degradation
of new physical birth. The spiritual climax is reached at the moment when
life ends.”

This logion from the Gospel of Thomas also suggests that our origin
and our end are the same, but that we must first stand at the beginning
before this is true. We must know our beginning in the Light before we
leave this flesh if we are to enter the light beyond shadow after death.
This also intimates that the immortality of the soul, so that we “shall
not taste death,” also depends on this same salvific Gnosis of our origin
in the Light. This is an act of remembering in truth, not an intellectualized
affirmation, a stated belief, or an imagined reality. The injunction, “Memento
morte,” remember death, might lead us to this same necessity of remembering
the truth of our origin and recognizing the unfortunate condition into
which we have been cast. This remembering might bring us sorrow in the
recognition of the wretched condition into which we have been thrown, as
the Mandaeans express it, “cast into a stump,” yet also the certainty and
hope for transcending it. The logion quoted above also intimates that we
have the potential to pass over and at least catch a tiny glimpse of that
light while still in the flesh. Just one real taste is all it takes. Then
you know, with a certainty beyond all doubt, that we have come from the
Light, and to that place of repose we shall return when we lay aside the
flesh. One of the few statements revealed about the Eleusinian mysteries
is that they gave to the initiate a certainty regarding the immortality
of one’s soul after death and a liberation from the fear of death throughout
the remainder of one’s life. The aim of the Gnostic mysteries is very much
the same.
The Repose mentioned in the Gnostic writings relates closely to this
original end, and also to the peace which comes to the Gnostic through
this experience. The initials on many tombstones, R.I.P., stand for “Rest
in Peace.” The early Gnostics often referred to the repose of the Blessed
Dead as the Rest as well. One of the major obstacles to serenity and peace
in our lives that we all come in with is fear, the fear of death, the fear
of how our end will be. This fear is the root of all other fears and anxieties
in our lives, it is hardwired into our bodies. It inspires the first question
asked of Jesus in this logion from the Gospel of Thomas. “Tell us how our
end will be.”
One of the psychological complexes that blocks us from transcending
and finding release from our fear of death is guilt. This is why so much
of the sacred mysteries depend upon a granting of absolution and an inner
purification to receive the Gnosis of the Light. In the Book of the
Pistis Sophia it is written:

“Every man who is to receive the mysteries, if they knew the time wherein
they would leave the body, they would be mindful and commit no acts of
darkness, so that they might ever inherit the Kingdom of the Light.”

There is not a saint who lived who did not commit some act of darkness
sometime during earthly life. The mere fact of incarnation puts us into
a condition of alienation, forgetfulness and ignorance against which we
must ever struggle. We come into this world and find only spiritual emptiness
in ourselves, because we are blind in our heart, as related in the Gospel
of Thomas. Some harm we do merely to guard our life and property in this
world, other acts of darkness we commit, if not with the evil intents of
our wounded egos, then through the mere clumsiness of the flesh or sheer
stupidity or ignorance of the consequences of our actions. These we must
accept as the ever present weaknesses and limitations of earthly existence.
Yet there is an admixture of darkness within us that comes from the archons,
such evil inclinations as vacillation, deceit, lust, pride, anger, greed
and envy. All of these have fear as their foundation, for, in the great
Gnostic myth, it was the fear of the first Archon, the Demiurge, that generated
them. Of those acts which stem from the limitations of earthly existence
we must be absolved and forgiven; of those latter evils which the archons
have wound about us as veil upon veil of fog and obscuration and night
we must be purified. According to the Book of the Pistis Sophia
we are purified of these by receiving the mysteries and going to the Light.
We are purified by consciousness; we are purified when we stand at the
beginning by the fiery spirit which we become through our own consciousness
of our origin in the Light.

“Now then, let him who shall do what is worthy of the mysteries receive
the mysteries and go to the Light. He who is to receive the mysteries becomes
a great fire, very mighty and wise, and it burns up evils, and the flames
secretly enter the soul and consume all the veils which the spirit of imitation
has fastened on it, and the soul surrenders their destiny, saying to the
rulers of destiny: ‘Take to yourselves your destiny; henceforth I come
no more to your region; I have forever become alien to you, being about
to go to the region of my inheritance.’ Thus the knower, the receiver of
the mysteries is free in his body and out of it, whether born on earth
or reborn in heaven.”

This saying from the Pistis Sophia describes the Gnostic Renunciation.
This is in many ways an inner prelude to the Gnostic sacrament of Redemption.
To accomplish this renunciation we must have those experiences of the Light
that allow us to consciously affirm our essential alienness to the veils
that the archons have wound about us and give them back to them, to let
the mighty fire of our spirit enter the soul and burn away these veils.
We achieve this by recognition of our origin in the Light, the region of
our inheritance. The Apocalypse of Paul describes the confrontation
and passage of these seven archons. His conversation with the last and
seventh archon, the Chief Archon, exemplifies the essential nature and
goal of the Renunciation:

“Then we went up to the seventh heaven and I saw an old man surrounded
by a cloud of light and whose garment was white. His throne, which is in
the seventh heaven, was brighter than the sun by seven times. The old man
spoke, saying to me, ‘ where are you going Paul, O blessed one and the
one who was set apart from his mother’s womb?’ But I looked at the spirit
(that accompanied me), and he was nodding his head, saying to me, ‘Speak
with him!’ And I replied, saying to the old man, ‘I am going to the place
from which I came.’”

It is possible and, indeed, required of us as Gnostics to pass over these
veils and experience the place of light from we came while still in the
flesh. We know then that we have come from that place of Light and to it
we shall return when we cast aside this flesh. “Shall not taste death”
does not mean that we will not lay down this flesh when it is time to depart
this world, but that our consciousness will not taste death; our consciousness
of who we truly are beneath all the obfuscations with which the veils of
the archons have surrounded us will not die. We are assured of the continuity
of our consciousness because we have gained conscious recollection of our
existence before this life, even before any lives in this world. With this
we cast off our fear of death and all other fears which stem from it from
which those veils of darkness were generated. We may not have the experience
of fully crossing over to the place of Light and bringing the memory back
to bodily consciousness, but we need only remember a small taste, the tiniest
whiff of the divine fragrance of that experience to remember the authenticity
of that Light when we come to it again. Most of us have at some time had
experiences of feeling just a little closer to a place of love and light
and the company of spirits from which we have come. These insights and
experiences of Gnosis do not happen upon command or worldly desire. Through
diligent struggle and a sincere heart-felt longing we gradually, veil by
veil, come closer to these realities. One insight, one experience builds
upon another but only if we remember and make spiritual use of the experiences
with which we have been graced.
If we do this, if we truly take on the “noble striver’s struggles” to
achieve this greater consciousness, then we will find that we are no longer
empty in this world, that we have a great treasure within us, a treasure
that has been with us from the beginning, but that we were too blind to
see. That which we took for treasure in this world becomes empty and we
see the poverty of worldly existence. “But I marvel at how this great wealth
has made its home in this poverty.” (Gospel of Thomas) Again we
come to that Gnostic conundrum that we must find this spiritual treasure
within us before we can relinquish the imitations that we take for wealth,
yet these very imitations are what obscure that inward treasure and blind
us to it. This is why we cannot accomplish this by individual struggle
alone. Divine aid has been dispensed to us; mysteries have been left for
us as “an outward sign of an inward and spiritual grace.” These mysteries
can remind us of that treasure if we let them. In material form though
they be, they can remind us of that spiritual treasure that cannot be taken
away, that cannot be tarnished, that cannot rot, that moths cannot devour,
nor worms destroy. Always the Gnostic task is to remember; as in the words
of the Savior, “Do this in remembrance of Me.” In remembering the Blessed
Dead, let us also remember the one who was sent for our deliverance and
liberation, to awaken us from our forgetfulness and to remind us of our
origin beyond this world. To remember death is to remember the beginning.
On All Souls’ Day we are reminded of that beginning. We are reminded of
our essential task of renouncing the world, of transcending death and of
the communion with our fellow spirits. Let us remember. Let us stand at
the beginning whereby we shall know the end and “shall not taste death.”

-- Rev. Steven Marshall http://gnosis.org/ecclesia/homily_Souls.htm

Save Our Souls by AquaSicio Cyril Rolando on Deviant Art

http://aquasixio.deviantart.com/

A homily and Meditations for All Soul's Day here http://www.gnosis.org/ecclesia/lect171.htm

About Me

Born in the south (Little Rock, Arkansas)and now transplanted to the wicked North. Will always and forever be a southern girl.
Born in 1947, the year the aliens were discovered in Roswell, NM. I always felt that explained it. I was an alien child left here and abandoned. I have always felt different, thought different and seen things different from everybody else.
As I'm maturing, the more curious I become, and the more mysteries I discover. The world as I thought I knew ceased to exist when I began to explore. And the deeper I explore the more curious things I discover.